I suspect this is one of the larger historical disagreements that I have had with various members of the rationality community. Right now when it comes to intellectual practice, I am most in favor of Levels 1-3 for beginners who are building functional scaffolds, and Levels 4-5 for intermediate level practitioners and beyond. The rationalist community and corpus seems to me to prefer Levels 1-3 much more for all practitioners.
Can you give a specific example of the way a person would act or think in some situation if they were prioritizing levels 1-3 vs. how they would act or think if they were prioritizing levels 4-5?
. . .
One thing I could imagine you to be saying is, “it is really useful to have a ‘brainstorming / generation’ mode, in which you try to come up with as many possible hypotheses as you can, and don’t worry if they’re false (or even incoherent).”
Or maybe you’re saying “It is good and fine to adopt ‘crazy hypotheses’ for years at a time, because you’ll get a lot of information that way, which ultimately helps you figure out what’s true.”
Or maybe, “It is a good idea to have some false beliefs, so long as they are the sort of false beliefs that great scientists typically have. This actually helps you get more relevant truths in the long run.”
Or maybe (as a sort of extension of my second guess) you’re saying “Individuals should ‘specialize’ in specific broad hypotheses. Instead of everyone having multiple models and frames, and trying to balance them, different people should ‘hedgehog’ on different models, each one adopting it really hard, and letting the epistemic process happen between the people, instead of within the people.
Can you give a specific example of the way a person would act or think in some situation if they were prioritizing levels 1-3 vs. how they would act or think if they were prioritizing levels 4-5?
. . .
One thing I could imagine you to be saying is, “it is really useful to have a ‘brainstorming / generation’ mode, in which you try to come up with as many possible hypotheses as you can, and don’t worry if they’re false (or even incoherent).”
Or maybe you’re saying “It is good and fine to adopt ‘crazy hypotheses’ for years at a time, because you’ll get a lot of information that way, which ultimately helps you figure out what’s true.”
Or maybe, “It is a good idea to have some false beliefs, so long as they are the sort of false beliefs that great scientists typically have. This actually helps you get more relevant truths in the long run.”
Or maybe (as a sort of extension of my second guess) you’re saying “Individuals should ‘specialize’ in specific broad hypotheses. Instead of everyone having multiple models and frames, and trying to balance them, different people should ‘hedgehog’ on different models, each one adopting it really hard, and letting the epistemic process happen between the people, instead of within the people.
Does any of that match what you would recommend?